Adventure #13: Startled by a Snapping Turtle on McEwen Lake
The morning of, we loaded up our two canoes and all of our gear into the vehicle to head out towards Margaret Lake access point. Kayden was overjoyed to be coming along this time, to say the least haha. The access point was really nice, with a small turnaround to make launching the canoes really easy. Unfortunately, we didn't notice the turn around until after we had already carried all of our gear from the parked vehicle to the put-in, so it wasn't much use to us on the first day. My brother and his girlfriend loaded into one canoe with their gear and the food barrel, while my dad and I loaded into another with our gear and Kayden.
Margaret lake had a few cottages scattered along its shoreline; however, the lake itself was fairly quiet. While paddling through, we kept commenting on how clear the water was as we were able to see all of the large rocks sitting along the bottom. The paddle to the first portage was very quick and we were pleased to see a nice, sandy area to step out of the canoe into. Once the canoes were emptied, we set out on our first trip across the portage with Kayden carrying his pack, my dad and brother carrying the canoes, and myself carrying the food barrel, fishing rods, and paddles. Kayden did really well on the first portage, sticking right by my dad, barely stopping to smell things. He did get bonked slightly by the back of the canoe at one point when he made the mistake of not watching where my dad was going, but he quickly learned that he should probably walk behind the canoe from then on.
At one point along the portage, there was a fallen tree that was just at that awkward height where you couldn't easily go under it or over it, and there was no way to go around it with the canoe. To get the canoes over it, the boys had to slide the noses of the canoes over the branch until they touched the ground on the other side, and then climb over the tree themselves, before crouching down to get back under the canoe and continue on their ways. Kayden, being the crazy dog he is, also attempted to hop up on this tree every single time we went by it, whether wearing the pack or not, with no encouragement from any of us. In fact, we had to tell him numerous times to get down as he was really intent on climbing all the way up the fallen tree, the silly dog! After dropping off our first load of gear, we headed back across the portage to pick up all of our packs to carry across. For this trip across, Kayden only had his lifejacket to carry. Once across the 338m portage for the 2nd time, we loaded back into our canoes to head on our way across Dan lake.
The first section of Dan lake was very swampy, with lots of trees/branches sticking up out of the water, making for a bit of a maze to paddle through. Luckily it was only a short distance that it was like that before it opened up to a nice-sized lake. Two of the sites we passed by were filled with people getting set up for a relaxing weekend. Once again, the paddle to our second portage was quite short, and we got to work carrying our gear over the 124m portage in the same fashion as the one prior. The portage was very quick and we were soon back on the water on McEwen lake in search of our home for the night, site 5. We ended up passing a couple of adult loons with two babies on our way.
Once we found the appropriate site, we discovered, from the water, that there was still gear scattered on the site and so we sat floating for a bit, trying to decide what to do. It was around 11:30am and since we had booked the site, we figured it should have been empty by then (if anyone knows what the proper time is to be off of a booked backcountry site, please leave it in the comments below as we had assumed it was 11am, but weren't quite sure). After floating for a couple minutes, a canoe approached with two women who, after commenting on how cute Kayden was in his lifejacket, asked if we were waiting for the site and quickly apologized, stating that they would be off the site in about 30 minutes. It wasn't a huge deal to wait and the two women seemed very nice, so we decided to head to the island across from our site to relax until they packed up.
Kayden has a habit of not eating his breakfast until around lunchtime, so he was starting to get a little whiney and fidgety in the canoe, so we decided to entertain him on the island by throwing his water toy we had brought so that he could go swimming. The island was set up great for swimming with rocks that slope at the perfect angle into the water. Kayden had a blast jumping off of them! While we were playing with Kayden, my dad decided to do a little bit of fishing from the island. Although he didn't catch anything, there were tonnes of little minnows that were very interested in his lure.
After a short amount of time, the site was finally free, and so we paddled over to begin setting up our gear. The site was high up from the water, but sloped down on one side, making for a great canoe put-in. The site was fairly flat and large, with good tree coverage, but also lots of open space. Down the trail at the back that leads to the thunderbox, there was also a really cool rock cliff. My brother and his girlfriend found the flattest spot to set up his Kelty tent while my dad and I got to work scouting out good trees to set up our hammocks. This was my dad's first time using his Eureka No Bug Zone shelter over his Amok hammock, and ended up with a really cool setup! I was using my Lawson hammock, as per usual. After getting all of our sleep systems set up and a clothesline hung, we set up our camp chairs to start making lunch. We had some chicken Mr. Noodle which was very tasty!
After lunch, the boys decided to start collecting firewood. After a bit of time, my dad stopped and he and I sat around for a bit in our hammocks to try and get Kayden to have a nap (it didn't work haha), while my brother and his girlfriend went exploring on top of the rock cliff at the back of our site. After they had collected enough wood, we all decided to go swimming, making use of the rocks at the front of our site to jump off of, given that the water was so deep.
Once we had finished swimming, my brother's girlfriend went to go do some fishing and ended up with a snapping turtle becoming very interested in her lure. Soon enough we were all down by the water, watching this large snapping turtle. My dad even leaned against a tree right at the water's edge to get a better look, only to have a snake come slithering out of the trunk of the tree. It was creepy! Once the snapper finally left, we relaxed for a bit before heading out in the canoes to explore some more of McEwen lake. There were so many small fish! My brother's girlfriend was fishing while we were exploring, but sadly she didn't really catch anything.
As dinnertime approached, we paddled back to our site to begin preparing some Knorr Sidekicks. While the rest of us were working on dinner, my dad started processing the wood to make a fire after dinner. Once dinner was finished and our food hung in a bear hang, we cleaned up our site a bit in preparation for the rain that was forecasted for that night, before sitting around the fire. We didn't end up sitting around the site for too long as some bugs started coming out, so we called it a night and headed off to bed. Kayden was going in the tent with my brother and his girlfriend for the night, but he was very confused and kept trying to follow my dad into his bug shelter. Soon after we all retreated to our shelters, the rain actually ended up starting, making us all thankful we had called it a night when we had.
That night it rained and thunder stormed for quite a while, making for very wet gear the next morning. Luckily we all stayed dry inside our shelters, yet given the forecast for that day, we didn't have time to let our gear dry before packing it up before the next thunderstorm rolled in. After we were all packed up, we had a quick breakfast of cereal before heading out on the water back towards the vehicle. Our goal was to make it to the vehicle before the next storm rolled in. It didn't take us very long to paddle back, crossing the two portages again. And although we had to wait for a few minutes at the access point for another couple to load up their vehicle, we still managed to get off of the water and loaded up in the vehicle before it started raining. We were travelling home when the thunderstorms started up again.
All in all, it was a really great trip despite being stuck having to dry out wet gear at home. It was my first time seeing baby loons, as well as a snapping turtle up close, and I loved getting back on the water with Kayden! His excitement for camping always makes my day! Hopefully, I'll be able to get back on the water with my family for another trip later this year.
Until the next adventure,
- Megan
Comments
Post a Comment